A Bent and Deformed Tree

In one of the numerous cities strung along the Alabama Gulf Coast, trees line the main highway.  This is a very intentional touch which reduces the "strip-mall" feel of the single story restaurants and stores which line the highway behind the trees.  The trees stand up straight, all the same type, all the same height.  This makes startling the one tree which grows straight out of an incline, parallel to the ground,  and then turns upward.  Someone failed to tend to this tree and it seems to have eventually turned upward of its own accord.  It now points in the desired direction, but it is gnarled and deformed.

Realize that our children are like these trees.  Raised and trained properly they will often stay within the faith.  Left to their own devices, they may stray.  Some will eventually return to the faith but only after receiving numerous scars and deformities.  They need loving gardeners.

 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Children learn values by watching their parents. There is a phrase, "Show, don't tell." Explain rules, do not just impose them. One thing which I taught my son and my grandchildren: "Don't be afraid, just be smart." Love unconditionally and predictably.  Do not "smother" your children's individuality. Your children do not need or want to be little clones of you.

This is ancient knowledge known by the Jews long before there were any Christians.  Christians often fail to remember our Jewish origins. In its strictest sense, “Torah” means the first five books of the Bible.  The word “Torah” תּוֹרָה

translates as “teaching,  or “instruction.” Read this web page written by the Chabad-Lubavitcher Rabbi Eliezer Shemtov of Montevideo, Uruguay.  Though I would interpret this in a Christian context, I agree with every word spoken here by the rabbi.